To be omnipotent, Baber says, “is to be able to do [directly, by fiat] any action… including actions at times other than” the time at which one is omnipotent. (p.6) But consider, say, the action of miraculously inflicting some person with a headache on 1/1/2015. It seems that the Father, on this theory, couldn’t do that, as he wouldn’t exist then (having been superseded by… Read More »“Sabellianism Reconsidered” Considered – Part 5 (Dale)
I love philosophy majors. The best of them almost always develop a nerdy and warped sense of humor – and I mean that in the best way. 🙂
These two young ladies, recent alumnas of our department, decided to get complementary tattoos. (Sober, they swear!)
In each case, the tattoo artist left off the two initial universal quantifiers: AxAy (I can’t find the symbol codes for the upside down A representing the universal quantifier – so please imagine those A’s upside down.) They would read: For any x whatsoever and for any y whatsoever…
Now to the tattoos. “F” is supposed to be, either a predicate or a property. On the right tattoo (wrist) the right, closing parentheses is just out of view.
One of the tattoos says something nearly all philosophers agree is true (a rarity!) while the other is held to be false by many. Here’s your homework, dear reader:Read More »A Tale of Two Tattoos (Dale)
The theory, then, is that God is an everlasting, temporally extended thing with three temporal parts, each of which is a god. But, they’re the same god as God. Yet as we saw last time, how can the Three be gods at all, as each exists at some times but not others?Without going into the arguments for this controversial thesis, Baber appeals to the claim made by Derek Parfit and others, that “identity is not ‘what matters’ for survival”. (p.6) Thus, a future thing can count as my surviving, though it is not (numerically) identical to me.
Suppose (I’m stealing this thought experiment from Richard Swinburne) some mad scientists, such as Pinkie and the Brain, are going to cut my brain in half, and put the left half in one body, and the right in another. The body which gets the left half will be tortured to death, while the body getting the right half will be given lifetime passes to all NFL games and a lifetime supply of good beer. If I’m to undergo this experiment, I want to know which of these resulting people will be (numerically identical to) me: the unlucky one, the lucky one, or neither.
Baber (following Parfit) wants to say that depending on how exactly the resulting people are related to me, both may count as the continuation of or survival of me. Specifically, she suggests that psychological continuity is enough – it is enough that the later people have the same or nearly the same beliefs, desires, and so on that I have.
I don’t think this is right, but back to the Trinity: In her view, the god which is a God-stage (temporal part of God) called the Father would, just before the Incarnation, be mistaken to think Read More »“Sabellianism Reconsidered” Considered – Part 4
To continue Baber’s attempt to retool Sabellianism:
Suppose your car, named KITT, has temporal parts. KITT, then is the sum of, the whole composed of these parts. (KITT at t1, KITT at t2, KITT at t3, KITT at t4…etc.) Further, Baber urges each of these car-stages (temporal parts of a car) is itself a car. So, e.g., KITT at t3 is just as much a car as the whole KITT. But now, suppose David Hasselhoff is driving KITT on, say, Easter. He’s actually, on this metaphysics, driving two cars, for KITT on Easter is a different car than KITT (the sum of KITT-stages).
Not to worry, argues Baber. We simply need a concept of “tensed identity”. This is not numerical identity as normally understood, but is rather the relation between KITT and KITT at Easter, such that they “count as one”. (p.5) Thus, Baber suggests that if we believe in temporal parts, the thesis of “tensed identity” is a “plausible way to avoid over-population.” (p. 5)
Back to God. She’s exploring the idea that God is a whole composed of three temporal parts Read More »“Sabellianism Reconsidered” Considered – Part 3
“I believe in the divinity of Christ.” Perfect. Like a Rorschach test, people can read it however they want.
“And if our hope in Christ is only for this life, we are more to be pitied than anyone in the world. But in fact, Christ has been raised from the dead. He is the first of a great harvest of all who have died. So you see, just as death came into the world through a man, now the resurrection from the dead has… Read More »He is risen! (Dale)
Following an ancient tradition of mocking modalists as “patripassians”, she seems to think the biggest or the main problem with modalism is that it identifies the Father and the Son. (pp. 1, 3) On her modalist theory, they are temporal parts (person-stages) of one being, but they are not numerically identical – they are different temporal parts of God. As she observes, on this theory, “There is… no time at while f=s.” (p. 3) Thus, her theory doesn’t identify any of the persons with one another, or with God for that matter.
Many metaphysicians, she knows, reject the theory of temporal parts, and the perdurance theory of how a thing can “last” through time.
But moving on, is this theory monotheistic? She urges,
All we need to capture the spirit of monotheism is the doctrine that at any time there is exactly one God. (3)
Huh? She draws an analogy with US Presidents; at any given time, there’s one one.
But imagine this:Read More »“Sabellianism Reconsidered” Considered – Part 2
Dr. Harriet Baber (aka H.E. Baber) teaches philosophy at the University of San Diego, and has been active for many years in the Society of Christian Philosophers. She’s published a number of papers on gender, philosophy of religion, metaphysics, and other topics. I met her in the 1990s at an SCP conference in California, and I have always found her to be funny, smart, and… Read More »“Sabellianism Reconsidered” Considered – Part 1
…very rarely is there found candour enough in the human breast, for a man to recede from opinions, for the defence of which he has drawn his pen, and been highly applauded, however strong and demonstrative be the evidence to the contrary that is presented to him. (Theophilus Lindsey, An Historical View of the State of the Unitarian Doctrine and Worship, From the Reformation to Our Own Times, p. 175)
Sad but true.
I must add, though, that one should be very careful in wielding this charge. In the context Lindsey is unfair; he makes this remark about a person in a dispute who in my judgment was not simply being stubborn, not ignoring a mass of evidence to the contrary.
We can be too quick to mock politicians (“Flip-flopper!”) who’ve changed their minds about substantial issues. We assume, cynically, that they must be merely saying they’ve changed beliefs to gain political advantage. But how do we know they haven’t really changed their mind, after revisiting the evidence? Case in point: Romney on abortion.
Given how finite and fallible we are, if someone never changes his mind, you can be sure that he just doesn’t think much.
True story: On the day I successfully defended my PhD dissertationRead More »Theophilus Lindsey on human stubbornness
Help James Anderson defeat my defeater for his defeater-defeater. Here. (The target.) What’s all this defeater business? Michael Sudduth explains here. I do not look forward to the agony. May all your defeaters be defeated – except the ones you have for false beliefs.
Congratulations to Scott Williams, trinities contributor and newly minted Oxford University PhD in Theology, on his forthcoming paper: ‘Henry of Ghent on Real Relations and the Trinity: The Case for Numerical Sameness Without Identity’, in: Recherches de Théologie et Philosophie Médiévales 79.1 (2012), will be published. Here is his abstract: I argue that there is a hitherto unrecognized connection between Henry of Ghent’s general theory of real relations… Read More »Scott Williams’s new paper: Henry of Ghent on Real Relations and the Trinity
<gossip>Once some years ago, I was hanging out with a group of Christian philosophers, and the subject of the Trinity came up. One person, a well known philosopher, firmly remarked that “It’s just gotta be modalism.” I recently shared this story with a Christian philosopher friend. In response, he told me that more recently, he was hanging with a group of Christian philosophers, and one (who… Read More »It’s just gotta be true…
A poor exchange. Read it first – then my comments. Where do I start? The unitarian behaves poorly. Pretending to ask questions, he instead puts forward objections. This is disrespectful. And it makes the compliments at the start seem disingenuous, which is obnoxious. But Bill serves it back, by sarcastically labeling the thing “Muslim objections…” Cute. Are these objections “simple-minded”? No, not really. What they are,… Read More »How not to conduct theological dialogue
First, I suggest we stick with “SER-ber-us” because pronouncing it “Ker-ber-us” fills some people’s heads with images like these. And we can all agree, that is not a good thing. 🙂 Last time, I mentioned Bill Craig’s recent public assertion of his Cerberus analogy for the Trinity. Here’s a remix by an Islamic apologist, with snickering commentary by Reformed Christian apologist James White. I take… Read More »Craig, White, and Cerberus
Some interesting Q & A from philosopher-apologist William Lane Craig.
First, a question inspired by internet crapola, Bill Maher’s Religulous, etc:
Jesus’ story cribbed from earlier Egyptian sources?
Son, let me take you out behind the shed.
Next?
Any good analogies for understanding the Trinity?Read More »Answers from the Answer Man
There was a famous dispute between the famous unitarian Socinus and a Hungarian unitarian leader Francis David (a.k.a. Ferenc Dávid, Franciscus Davidis; 1510-79) about whether Christians should worship or pray to Jesus. Both were what I call humanitarian unitarians (Jesus did not exist before his conception, and does not have a divine nature.) This dispute went on for some time both in person and in… Read More »Francis David: Against Worshiping Jesus
When discussing Revelation 4-5 earlier in this series, I looked backwards and forwards through the book, to get a comprehensive view of this author’s theology and christology. But I overlooked something, namely this interesting little tidbit, in another throne room scene, in an interlude between some smiting. And I saw what appeared to be a sea of glass mingled with fire—and also those who had conquered the beast… Read More »Worship and Revelation 4-5 – Part 9 – Song of the Lamb
The extraordinary early American minister Noah Worcester (1758-1837) fought in Battle of Bunker Hill, made shoes, taught school, served in the New Hampshire legislature, campaigned unsuccessfully for pacifism, and in his spare time, wrote some really interesting philosophical theology. (In my lingo, he’s a subordinationist unitarian.)
Here are some of his thoughts on the subject of worshiping Jesus.
That the Son of God is to regarded as an object of DIVINE HONORS, is so plain from the Scriptures, that it seems extraordinary that it should even have been denied by any one who has admitted the Bible as a rule of faith and practice. …We have express declarations of the will of God. “The Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment to the Son, that all men should HONOR the SON even as they honor the Father.” This is a sufficient warrant for men to give DIVINE HONORS to the SON of God. Angels have their warrant also; for “When he bringeth in his ONLY BEGOTTEN into the world, he saith, Let all the angels of God WORSHIP HIM.” (Noah Worcester, Bible News: Or, Sacred Truths Relating to the Living God, His Only Son, and Holy Spirit, p. 128, bold added)
I agree.
Worcester proceeds to carefully work through many arguments in this chapter with sure-footed common sense and deep familiarity with the Bible. I thought his answer to a common objection to worshiping the Son was especially interesting:
It may still be thought, that if the Son be not the self-existent God, but has been exalted by God as an object of Divine honors, then God has given his glory to another, contrary to his own word. …
[In reply,] Read More »Worship and Revelation 4-5 – Part 8 – Objection: I Will Not Give My Glory to Another
19th c. American minister Charles Morgridge makes an apt comment about Revelation 4-5: There is not in the Bible a clearer distinction between the only true God, and his only Son our Saviour, than is here expressed. GOD sat on the throne; the Son stood amidst the elders. GOD had in his right hand a book; the Son came and took the book out of his… Read More »Worship and Revelation 4-5 – Part 7 – Charles Morgridge on Revelation 4-5
And we saw, at the climax of the heavenly scene in Rev 4-5, those present in God’s throne room fall down and worship. (5:14) Whom do they worship? Both God, and the Lamb, as the songs said. (4:11, 5:11-13) But there’s an interesting textual variant. If you look in your old King James Version, which uses an inferior edition of the Greek New Testament, 5:14… Read More »Worship and Revelation 4-5 – Part 6 – An interesting textual corruption